Soul Mates
by LusciousNesha
Summary: Just a one shot about the friendship dynamic of the HD trio


_If you've never watched Shadowhunters, I have some references to the end of the show. This is me hella projecting my Black girl issues on Char + my concerns about her character in the show too. _

**Soul Mates**

Charlotte hardly ever got a chance to catch up on the shows that she loved, and she was FINALLY finishing Shadowhunters. She'd initially taken a break whenever the outpour to have it renewed or picked up elsewhere led to nothing. It was ended, and she wanted to draw it out as long as she could. Now, she was at home, alone, catching up, with a matcha tea smoothie, a sheet mask on her face, and a plastic cap on her head for deep conditioning. Charlotte's time… Until she heard the pebbles on the window. _Henry! _

She jumped up, forgetting the condition she was in and opened the window to look out. "Whoa!" He said, with a start. "Charlotte? Is that you under…" He waved a hand to indicate her, "All that…?" She gasped, but then realized, it's just Henry.

"I hope this is an emergency, because it's Charlotte Time, and I'm watching Shadowhunters."

Jasper appeared, running up as he said, "I love the SWEET Malec wedding in the end!" She groaned. She had purposefully avoided checking anything that might tell her anything this whole time.

"Open up. We're comin' in," Henry said.

"Okay," She groaned again and went to let them inside.

They were watching with her, commenting on things about the show, which Henry wasn't nearly as familiar with, but wanted to chill with his two best friends after a hard night of work that he didn't really want to talk about. They got to the end, despite Charlotte having to pause it a few times to take off her sheet mask and rinse her hair. She let the boys each braid half for her to set it for the night.

Whenever they got to the end, she was trying not to cry. "That was beautiful," Henry said. I almost wanna go watch the rest." Charlotte scoffed. "Yeah, you're right, I'm definitely not gonna commit to it." She just shook her head, clearly flustered. "Or… I will? What's wrong with you? Let me know something. You look…" He stared at her for a moment… "Well, you look beautiful, I mean, the mask thingy works wonders, but I mean, you look like you don't feel okay."

She shook her head and said, "I just get tired of never seeing a full happy ending for the Black girl characters." Jasper and Henry both shifted uncomfortably. They'd had discussions about this before and previously, realized that they apparently didn't know wtf they were talking about. They didn't like for the conversation to come up, but SHE didn't always like to see what she saw. "It;s like on the one hand, her character gets to start fresh and be a leader, but we already know that being a packmaster is hard work and that she'll be doing it alone, because of ALL the major characters in this show, the ONLY one that had to lose her love by the end was her. Everyone else is booed up, and happy together, even in the very end, we see that the two main characters will most likely get back to their love. But, her story ends in deciding how to best bring people into her restaurant. They literally took away her lover and put her in a service capacity as her happy ending. Why couldn't she have love too? Why can't we ever have love? We're _always _depicted as an odd numbered wheel, or the savior without a story, or the servant without a love. Sure, we're strong and independent and don't need anybody, but it'd be nice to see it happen sometimes, especially in the end of a show. What would they have lost by letting her be happy WITH someone?" She got up and left the room.

Jasper and Henry looked at each other and began to play rock, paper, scissors to see who was gonna go check on her, but she came back quick, with a satin headwrap that she started tying on. "And like… if it happened every now and then, I'd be fine right now. But, I invest years of my life to shows that don't care if my representation gets to have proper treatment. Then, I have to live in the real world, where I'm ignored and unappreciated just as much. I'm tired of it. I'm not watching anything else. I'm going on a fast from shows and stuff."

"The real world you're ignored and unappreciated? We literally just braided your hair for you," Jasper pointed out.

"Yeah. You and your soul mate," she rolled her eyes and sat on the bed. "Me and Hen used to be super close, and as soon as he had another friend in the Man Cave, I got placed on the backburner. However your stories eventually play out, I already know, IF I'm in it, it'll be in the background, somewhere." She shrugged her shoulders, "And I can't even escape into fantasy where I get to imagine that things aren't like that, because even if there are fairies, vampires and werewolves… Black girls still need to know their place in that probably happy, but not like the others level." She felt that weird feeling again, like she might cry. It passed. She wasn't a huge cryer, ad certainly wasn't trying to do so in front of the boys.

"You feel left out?" Henry asked, shocked. He wrapped an arm around her and pulled her in. "That's… I don't know what to say. I don't feel like you're ever left out. I think about things all the time from a very Charlotte standpoint. I still do the opposite, most of the time, but I honestly can't imagine my story without you being a huge part of it. I thought that you and Jasper got closer since he came in. You two are always in the Man Cave together. You've got routines and habits that are specific to your friendship. You're kinda his mom a lot."

"I don't want to be anybody's mom. I don't want to be anybody's angel on the shoulder that they ignore. I want to be a best friend and a lover and a human with importance."

"A lover?" Jasper repeated.

"No… I meant…" She shook her head.

"Jasper, lets just hug her. That should work."

"That won't…" Jasper came around to the other side of Charlotte and the boys locked her into a hug. It did help. "You two are gonna either be best friends forever, or get married or something, and I'm gonna maybe be in the wedding, but probably not even really ever see you again. We graduate soon and I don't know. The soul mates thing really shook me."

"I never agreed to any of this," Henry said.

Jasper scoffed. "It's fate. You don't have to agree. But, Char… It's like… Even if those things DID happen. If me and Henry are best friends and lovers or anything else."

"Anything else," Henry slyly commented.

Jasper didn't miss a beat, ignoring him, "Our relationship won't end your relationship. Even if he turned out to be the love of my life."

"You're really running with it," Henry said, to be ignored again.

"_You're _his parabatai." Charlotte's eyes glazed over and she started finally crying, leaning more into Jasper's side of the hug.

"I don't know what that means," Henry said, looking it up on his phone. "A **parabatai** is a pair of Nephilim warriors who fight together as lifelong partners, bound together by oath, regardless of their gender. Their bond is not reflected only in their closeness and willingness to lay down their lives for one another, but also in oath—one sworn in front of the Council… Facts."

"Do you guys want to stay over? It's October. We can watch Crazyhead?"

"We came over to stay over. Crazyhead. Is that the one with the zombies?" Henry asked.

"Demons," Jasper and Charlotte answered.

Jasper added, "Keep up, Soul Mate," and winked at him.


End file.
